


you, beautiful you

by orphan_account



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Consensual Sex, Loss of Virginity, M/M, also really self indulgent, tbh all of my fanfic is tho, this is way longer than i thought it would be but here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:29:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27843757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The Grail quest has failed and they have returned to Camelot. Percival did not expect Galahad to turn up at his chambers so late tonight, but that is what has happened. Feelings are confessed, words are communicated, and they get their first taste of intimacy that they haven't read about in tales of romance.
Relationships: Galahad/Percival (Arthurian)
Kudos: 7





	you, beautiful you

Galahad stops by Percival’s chambers that night.

He descends the old stone staircase through the castle, candle dripping wax and straining faint gold against the moonlight streaming in silver. He knows he must not be alone with his thoughts, but that’s always the outcome anyways — the moment he closes the door (and he always does, because he constantly wonders what the point of it all is if they never found that damned Grail they thought was so sacred) despairsettles onto him. He can only keep at bay if he talks to the others, and even he’s starting to drift away from them.

There’s a yawn on the other side of the door before it opens. Percival stands before him, what isn’t censored by shadows illuminated faintly in silver. When the glow of candlelight falls upon him Galahad sees that his dark hair is tangled and sticking up in odd directions, eyes blinking open and shut.

“Is something the matter?” He asks, words are soft with sleep. “Are we supposed to be on patrol tonight?”

Galahad shakes his head. “No. Nothing like that. I just…”

_I cannot tell the truth because it will hurt. I should not. Even though I want to._

“Just what?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I was hoping you would be kind enough to let me stay with you for tonight.”

“You know I’ll always keep my door open for you, Galahad.”

He slips inside, setting the candle down on the little table nearby. It is a strange thing, Galahad thinks as his knees sink against the plush, firm mattress and leave dented imprints, to return to sameness. At least now it is — because things are different now, I don’t know what I ought to do.

Percival crawls across the bed to face him, cradling a pillow against his chest. There is an aching silence for a moment.

“So,” Percival asks, “Shall we try to rest now? Or is there something you’d like to talk about?”

Nervous, Galahad twists his fingers. “There’s nothing to talk about, Percy. Nothing at all.”

_There is so much I wish I could tell you. And I don’t know whether doing so would be selfish or not._

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. Please don’t worry too much about me, I’m alright. Just tired, there’s nothing more to be concerned about.”

Percival sighs, sitting cross-legged on the other side of the bed the bed. He tries to tear his eyes away from the way the linen of his nightshirt rides up his legs, thin cloth stroking up against his skin. Galahad wonders for a moment what it would be like to feel balanced on those legs, without clothing acting as an obstacle between them. To feel the friction of skin brushing at skin, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Wouldn’t that go against everything he’s clung to his entire life?

“I don’t like when you act like this, Galahad.”

“Act like what?”

“…Like that. When it’s very clear that something can’t be right, yet you go on anyways as though nothing is wrong.”

“All I am is tired, Percy. I really don’t want you to worry—”

“How long have you been tired?”

He starts to say it is only this night, but puts a stopper in his words. 

_How long_ have _I been tired?_

Was it the evenings spent trudging the long way back to the castle, limbs too sore and vision too distorted by sunspots to admire the wind making the grass ripple or the dazzling warmth of the setting sun? Was it the nights spent praying to a God who didn’t answer his requests to make him worthy of his father loving him? Was it the day he feebly hauled himself through the dungeon, back to light where his skin turned sickly pale and the chains he’d snapped off his wrists still left bruises in their wake? Or perhaps it was never a tiredness that made his bones itch and every movement feel slower. Perhaps it was a tiredness of the mind, where he forced himself to cling to the pedestal he was put on against his own will because it was all he had left even though he could not dance with everyone else, not properly.

“I don’t know.”

_Truth be told, I’ve lost track of how long I’ve really been tired._

“Then you must have been tired for a very long time. But you’re ignoring it now like you always do, or at least when I ask you for the truth I don’t always feel like I’m getting it.”

He doesn’t say a word. Percival takes that as a cue to keep speaking.

“It wasn’t always like this with me. This is how you act with everyone else — you’ve always had to wear that mask for them, and I think I was supposed to, too, I just never found out how exactly I had to wear the mask just right. We used to confess so many things to one another in the dark, didn’t we? Because it wasn’t selfish if it was us. And I love you because it’s you. Not because you’re trying to be something perfect. There must have been a catalyst that left us here.”

It is painful to look Percival in the eyes, but trying to pick out the deep blues he can in his pupils is all Galahad can do to ease the knots coiling up in his stomach. They both know the truth of the matter, but only one of them is willing to admit it.

“It was the Grail, wasn’t it?”

Quiet, hardly audible, Galahad speaks at long last.

“Yes. It was — for me.”

The weight of all he has felt and seen is going to crush him someday. Galahad knows that much. The Grail remains unclaimed, there are nights spent wishing he had been left to rot away and die in those dungeons, because he _failed_. That was why he’d shaken his head and pleaded _no_ when Mordred stumbled across him and dragged him out between those crumbling foundations, why he wished his weakened body would just give out already. He had nothing else to live for save for what he was destined to grow up to, and he doesn’t even have that anymore. How can he call himself a proper Saint if he can’t even carry out what so many thought to be the ultimate tribute to the God he prays to?

“Tell me why.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to know. I don’t want you to keep doing this to yourself.”

Percival’s bare hands reaching out to grasp his own are a small comfort.

“There are nights when I wish I’d just died even if it meant achieving the Grail.” He has to pause to breathe after that, his heart feels like it’s shriveling up in his chest letting him say these things. 

Percival tries to ease him, running his palms over Galahad’s hand. There are the faint, rough bumps of callouses set against soft skin. “…Go on. Take as long as you’d like, Galahad.”

“I spent my whole life thinking if I could just retrieve the Grail that all would be well in the world. I knew from the start that I wasn’t supposed to exist. I think La — _my father_ — never said it even though he tried and still tried to be a father, but that is something a child picks up on.”

_This is routine. We’ve gone through this before. Percival knows these words from memory, impeccably so._

“But I failed. I never found the Grail, and I’m here now. Alive. I think I came close to destroying myself trying to find it — I hated having everyone’s eyes on me, hated knowing that I wasn’t really anything beyond a model knight that I wasn’t ever really. I just thought even if I hurt or killed myself it would not matter. It would have been done because of God’s word and that was the most important part.”

The sheer misery that overcomes Galahad as he recounts the present is near overwhelming. What keeps it from completely tearing him to shreds is Percival acting as his anchor, his hand straying from where it rests on Galahad’s to gently press against the juncture of his neck and shoulder, not suffocating but a softer reminder that he has someone to catch him should he fall.

“The pity is worse than the disdain. They all know I failed and I hate myself for it — hate that I was not good enough no matter how hard I tried — but I hate the soft looks and murmurs of ‘that poor thing’. At least in death they don’t speak so cruelly of you. At least in death, I think, I would be hailed as a hero. But at the same time, I’m _scared_ — it would be pathetic and selfless to take my own life rather than die on the battlefield or trying to achieve what Camelot has sought for so long. Even though I’ve been recovering physically since you all found me, I know I will never be me again, not really. And I don’t know how I can live with that.”

Percival gives up on being distant and pulls Galahad close. His arms squeeze around him tight.

“Thank you for telling me everything you did.”

Swaths of satiny, dark hair slide over Galahad’s cheek. In the stillness he can feel the rhythm of Percival’s beating heart so close to his. He wonders again what it would be like to not have their nightshirts separating them entirely.

“I think not finding the Grail hurt me, too. Not in the same way as you, though.”

“Please tell me, then. I think that makes it fairer — I spilled out everything weighing me down to you, it would make sense if you did the same for me.”

There is a certain thrill that comes from Percival’s whispers dancing so close to his ears.

“I thought that good and evil were all the world were before then. And I thought so long as I was on the side of good — at least I _tried_ to be, there were and still are times where it doesn’t feel like it — we would triumph. The truth is that there’s more than good and evil. I think I still clung to the games we played when we were very young. You remember, right? When we first met and I’d tell you that were any monsters to corner us in the woods that I would save you from them? And I thought that there were monsters dressed in human skin in reality, but…”

“I remember.”

“The Grail quest taught me that. And I don’t know how to feel about it — it’s the truth, but it hurts.”

“The truth often hurts, Percy.”

“I know.” Percival’s breathing is ragged — he thinks he might cry. He would welcome that. “I think it’s okay to let it hurt, though.”  
“You do?”

“I do. Because I don’t think much good comes out of pretending otherwise. The misery festers inside of you until it wounds you badly enough. So if you don’t want to feel better or hope for things to be alright, there’s nothing wrong with that. If I could wish away your sorrow and replace it with happiness, I would. But I can’t. And I don’t want either of us to pretend we can. It simply can’t be right.”

He has fallen from his pedestal, no longer Galahad the Pure. He is more Galahad the Broken now. Though the splinters of bone poking through his too-thin limbs have healed by now, what he used to be and what he wanted has been all but shattered. He knows why he tries to carry on as if otherwise, though. It is because this is his normal. This was his life. He had nothing else. So he holds onto Percival, who will be a crutch for him when he can.

There’s a swelling between his legs, something that presses up smooth and needy against the still-clothed skin of Percival’s stomach. He says nothing about it and simply reaches up to sink his fingers into soft, soft black hair. Lord, is it physical rapture to be so close.

“There is something I know I want. I don’t know if it will help completely, but it’s what I desire for regardless.”

_You can say no. Even though there is no need to be chaste after all we have seen and touched, because chastity could not get me a father’s respect or help you be a savior for all of Camelot._

“What is it you want, Galahad?”

His words buzz so close to his ears. Blood pumps fast through his veins, heartbeat growing louder in his ears.

“I want…” He pauses to breathe, trying to get the words to stop clinging to his tongue. “…I want you to take me.”

Percival shifts and drags his knee against the bump of Galahad’s hardness — a brief moment of pleasure, Galahad gives a soft moan in response to it.

“I want you, too,” Percival whispers. “But how long have you wanted me?”

He thinks back to those days where he imagined Percival as an angel, imagined Percival rolling him over onto his back so that his skin was trapped between him and soft earth beneath — he had to push those images out of his mind, for he would not live up to his name as pure if he let those thoughts in. There were dreams, though, dreams that he kept to himself and little requests weighing his tongue down heavy and limp. Now he doesn’t have to worry about those anymore.

“How long _have_ I wanted you?” He repeats. “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

When soft lips press against his face — he can feel the half-dried moisture of tears, he was crying and didn’t even realize it — the sorrow fades just a little. 

Percival’s fingers grip at the sleeves of his nightshirt. He drags kisses against Galahad’s cheeks, his temples, across his nose, everywhere save for his lips. He moves his hand to fist at Galahad’s hair, in daylight colored blonde with glints of coppery red.

“I can stop if you want me to. I know of our vows, they mean nothing to me yet maybe they do to you—”

“Don’t,” Galahad pleads. “Don’t.”

He wonders if it’s his imagination playing tricks on him. It must be a cruel prank, and he will wake up with none of this as real, no Percival so close to him. But the touch of warm lips on his skin is too real, the fingers sliding over his nightshirt too solid. If this is to be a dream, it is one he welcomes with open arms.

Galahad finds Percival’s tongue slipping past his lips to occupy his silk-like mouth. He welcomes him, breathing whatever noises he was ready to make into their feverish kissing. Fingers pry at nightshirts, pausing to indulge in slipping beneath to touch at warm, soft skin even if they are far from finished in undressing. He pistons his hips against Percival’s, pulling away to let warm salivarun down his lips when he speaks — “Percy, _please_ —”

“Please what? Shall I keep going?”

He sighs airily in response. “Yes. Lord, Percy, yes.”

There come more sweet, sweet kisses — heavier, craving. Percival’s mouth is not nearly as lenient against the column of Galahad’s neck, teeth and lips working to leave behind what will form faint marks in the morning. Galahad will bear them as a badge of small honor. This is what he wants, this is a reminder that even if he can’t go back to the past there has to be at least _something_ to look forward to in the future.

“You’re so lovely, Galahad. I’d hardly be surprised if the angels envied you.”

He imagines himself as an angel for a moment, large feathered white wings stroking at his sides, and puts the thought out of his mind. He is here on Earth and here with Percival. For the time being, that is enough.

Percival’s hand finds its way beneath his nightshirt, the tips of his fingers ghosting over one of Galahad’s stiffening nipples. He thumbs at the rosy flesh there and Galahad breathes sharply.

“Do you…” He’s kissing at his skin again, Galahad could drown thanks to the feel of those velvet-like lips on him. “…Do you like this? Does this feel good for you?”

“Yes. Keep going.”

The hand traces its way across his chest,brushing new flesh with each movement. 

Percival jerks back. At first Galahad mourns for the loss of warmth and still feels the aftermath of lips tingling soft and full on his skin, but then Percival’s struggling to pry him out of his nightshirt. The first layer of goosebumps begin to crawl across his skin at the sudden rush of cool air once the laces to his nightshirt are undone and the sleeves slide down on him.

“I want to give you pleasure. I know this won’t fix everything, but if you are to leave me behind I’d prefer it to be after this.”

Galahad’s arousal-addled mind can’t concentrate on Percival’s words, they slip by him as warm and quick as running water. All he’s focusing on is Percival’s hands twisting and tweaking at his nipples gently, fingers dragging in slow circles over the hardening flesh. Purity — temptation, too — is fake. It is a myth, one that Galahad believed with all his heart. He still cares that it exists, but he doesn’t want to focus on it now. All he wants is to realize with delight yet again that Percival is here with him at long, long last.

He tries to speak but it comes out as a needy whine. “Percy—”

“Mm?” Percival’s moving his head down now, unkempt hair grazing Galahad’s skin as he toys with one of his nipples in his mouth. His fingers rasp through Percival’s hair, pressing him closer every time his teeth bump ever-so-slightly against him.

“Percy — I — I —”

His words come out distorted and flat.

“Is this alright? I can always stop if it isn’t.”

“It’s not that, I just want you to use your mouth on me.”

Percival unlatches his mouth with a soft, wet _pop_. “But I just was.”

“Not on my chest. On my—” He chokes on the words, trying to guide Percival’s hands between his legs. “—On my prick.”

“Oh. That.”

He lets out a soft laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“I don’t know, I just didn’t think I’d ever end up hearing you use the word ‘prick’. It’s so… vulgar. It’s not like you, not because you’re innocent by any means but because I didn’t think you’d use a word that people think is so crude.”

“You just said it too!”

“Oh, Lord,” Percival buries his face in his hands, “I did. I really just did.”

It is a novel thing but also old warmth settling over them. This is almost the joy they had before the Grail, when they were convinced that even if the world were not so sweet and fair that they would be able to make it so in time. What a comfort it is to know that they can settle into their old skins and be themselves again, even if it could only be for just this one night among the many more that stretch into the years to follow.

Galahad nudges at his shoulder with one hand. “Hypocrite!”

“Hey!”

He chokes on his words between giggles. “Percy, you hypocrite, you’re all flustered because I tried being ‘vulgar’ but then you just said the word ‘prick’ with a completely straight face!”

“It just happened! I didn’t _mean_ to let it slip out, I’m sorry!”

“Oh come on, Percy, we both know you didn’t!”

He’s trying to stifle his laughing by covering his mouth up with his hands. His shoulders shake. At last, Percival calms down enough to say in a voice still lilting with giggles, “If you keep teasing me then I’m not going to use my mouth on you. I’ll leave you alone and needy.”

“Okay, okay, you’re not a hypocrite and we shouldn’t have to get all worked up over either of us saying the word ‘prick’.”

He feels those hands — gentle, gentle hands — upon him again, this time slowly stroking down over his thighs. “Could you get on your back for me so I can taste you?”

His back falls against the plush mattress in a single, quick motion. There is Percival, guiding his legs apart and running his palms back and forth, back and forth over the insides of his thighs. He twists himself around between him, eyes staring down at the hardness between Galahad’s legs.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this before.” His breath condenses on him.

Galahad does not say a word. He doesn’t feel like he needs to — he wants this, Percival does, too. There’s more warm breathing puffing against him, then comes the wet moisture of Percival’s tongue flicking out over him.

“I’ve never done anything like this before. I’ve… I’ve only read about it in some of the books at the library.”

“I haven’t either.” _But there isn’t anything wrong with that,_ is what they both know.

Percival’s head falls down against him. His mouth on him is smooth and silky, tongue twirling against the pulsing skin. Galahad screws his eyes shut, legs tensing and blindly groping to cling to Percival’s hair lightly. He can feel the expanding and hollowing of that beautiful, beautiful mouth on him. There those are again, the feelings that no book can really put into words, no matter how festooned it all may be in pretty prose and ornate pictures.

“God,” he says to the silence. He just hears barely audible inhaling and exhaling. It’s messy and he thinks discharge is smearing against Percival’s lips, but it’s his first, it’s his first with someone who he’s wanted to be his first for the longest time. He had wanted to savor what he had thought was forbidden fruit, only to find that now that they no longer have vows to hold fast to that the rules about what’s forbidden and what isn’t have shifted. He uses his other hand to squeeze the sheets up in his fist, searching for some point of certainty to cling onto.

“Beautiful,” Percival gets out when he pulls his mouth away, “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

He strokes at the spot where he wonders if he might have yanked on Percival’s hair too hard, trying to soothe what may be that little patch of stinging scalp.

“So’re you, Percy. So’re you.”

Galahad climbs off the bed, half-naked and body once again protesting from that loss of warmth. He rummages through the drawer in the table, fishing out that solution contained in a bottle. He’d read in the books about how the first time tends to hurt, with women they were prone to bleeding or slight pain at first. This is supposed to help, he thinks.

“I read in the books—”

“That it was supposed to hurt a little. More for whoever’s receiving—” Percival snarfs on another laugh because the word is so alien “—prick.”

“I want to, though.”

“You’ve made that clear up to now.”

“I still do. We both have, for a very long time.”

“I know. And I want you. Because I know how beautiful you are, both with your face and with your heart. But if it hurts _too_ much or you decide that you’re not ready, I need you to tell me. The one thing I never want to do is cause you any pain. I will stop if you ask me to.”

“I feel as if I won’t.”

“You feel. You don’t know. That might change, and if it does I need you to make it clear to me.” He reaches up his hands to frame Galahad’s cheeks. “You understand, don’t you?”

He does. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Good. I’ll… use my fingers on you first. That’s what the books said you were supposed to do.”

He spreads the thick substance from the bottle all across his knuckles and His fingers stretch Galahad open — prodding, moving, curving around against that puckered rim of pink. Galahad’s dripping and now he doesn’t even have the luxury of Percival’s mouth to suck him clean. When Percival bumps up against a certain cluster of nerves inside of him he melts. His muscles unclench, legs shifting a little, soft moans for more leaking past his mouth hanging open.

Percival flinches. “Oh. It doesn’t hurt, does it? I didn’t think it would, I was only using my fingers—”

“Please, it doesn’t. I like how it feels.”

“Let me know when you want me. I’ll be sure to be gentle.”

There are his fingers again, twisting around deliciously inside of him and nudging that sweet point of pressure buried deep inside. His eyes flicker open and shut, a quiet command dripping from his lips.

“Percy, could you take your nightshirt off for me?”

He pulls his fingers out and bunches up his nightshirt in his hands. “I will. Is there any reason as to why?”

“I want to feel you too.”

So he does. He peels away the nightshirt which gives way to skin painted silver-gold by the mingling of moonlight and candlelight. He reaches for Galahad’s wrist and helps him sit up, placing his palms to spread them across the center of his chest. At first he revels in that stretch of skin, familiar scars and grooves resting warm beneath the surface of his palm, and then revels further at the pulsing of Percival’s beating heart.

“This is me.”

“This is you,” Galahad echoes.

“This is me. All of me.”

_This is reality._

Percival is waiting, open.

_This is reality._

He climbs onto his lap, feeling for the warm hardness between Percival’s legs.

_This is reality._

He sinks little by little onto him. 

It hurts — only a little, but enough to make him clutch Percival tightly when he finally settles back on his lap.

“You seem tense. Am I hurting you?”

“A little. But not enough to make me want to stop.”

“Then I won’t.”

He fits into Percival’s lap, his hands, just as much as Percival fits inside of him. As if it were always supposed to be that way. It’s still a little painful when Percival begins to move again, and he can tell. Between waiting for Galahad to motion for him to stop — he doesn’t, the hurt’s starting to fade, he does not mind it so — he soothes him with his lips all across his skin and twines his fingers through his long hair. It is a startling but wonderful thing to belong and to be cared for the way he is now. The pain ebbs away entirely for every time Percival hits just the right spot inside of him, and he starts to leave Percival kisses of his own.

“Percy,” he stutters out, “It doesn’t hurt so anymore.”

“How does it feel?”

He curls against Percival’s shoulder and _oh,_ the way he’s sheathed inside of him all over again is making dark spots dance before his eyes. “It feels good. Wonderful.”

They’re both quiet in the dark, only the softest gasps interrupting the cycle. In and out, in and out, Percival finds his mark every time. He can feel Percival shivering — delighted, euphoric, safe — under him for every time he moves. He can feel himself starting to leak against Percival, streaking against the warmth of his stomach with his movement. 

“I’m glad that you chose me,” Percival tilts Galahad’s head up to mouth a fresh path against the curve of his jaw.

“I’m glad that you chose me, too.”

He works his arms to cling to Percival, it’s hard to imagine that anything short of magic might be able to properly pry him off. There’s energy, building up hot inside of him, rushing through his veins, he can hear himself crying out softly in tandem with the delectable noises Percival is making. 

To speak is a struggle, but he tries to. “Are you… are you going to?”

“I think s — oh, Galahad—”

Something spills into Galahad, hot and sticky and starting to drip down inside of him. It is Percival filling him up, and he lets go.

Something crescendoes inside of him: Warmth, bliss, the same energy that he can’t find the words to describe. Galahad tightens his grip around Percival, feeling himself streak white against Percival’s stomach with how close they are. Percival’s name fits as a mantra in his mouth, something he repeats first at a normal almost clear volume that eventually fades to quiet. 

When he unwraps his arms and stares back at Percival his hair is an unruly mess clinging down on his back and shoulders. His lips stretch up weakly into a smile as he pulls himself off.

“Did you get any pleasure out of that, Percy?”

“Yes. Because it was you. It wouldn’t have been the same if it was anyone else. Did you?”

“I did.”

Their vow is broken. Galahad knows that he will ponder and fret about it come morning, but for now to be caught up between Percival and the warm, thin bedsheets is a comfort. All of that hardly seems important now. He drapes the bedsheets over himself and lets Percival climb next to him.

“I hope,” Percival muses between a pondering kiss to his nose, “That you’ll be able to rest a little more peacefully tonight.”

They don’t speak after that. They communicate what they can through a secret code of exchanged kisses and shared warmth. At long last, Galahad feels himself start to slip into sleep. He knows he will not re-open his eyes until morning.

“Good night,” Percival says to him.

“Good night, Percy.” Then, just before he falls asleep entirely: “Good night, my love.” 

**Author's Note:**

> please note, as listed on my profile already: comments are disabled because i don't want to get any adults who might come across my work in trouble for interacting with me through explicitly sexual content! i want to write explicit content, but i know that it is also just as important to keep myself safe.
> 
> i love how while my telling my family i had to stay up late to finish work was true, "finishing smut about two knights from old english legends" was definitely not one of the tasks they probably thought was on my list :]
> 
> gaahhh, this was an interesting experience. mostly because i've never written smut that was this long before D: in the end, though, i'm happy with how it turned out - i was very careful in trying to focus on the emotional aspect of the experience, as well as highlight just how caring and sweet they're both trying to be with one another. this, i believe, is an extremely important part about galahad and percival, where they are so comfortable yet considerate with any forms of intimacy they share, be it emotional or physical.
> 
> also, new drinking game: take a shot every time i use the word "soft" or any variation thereof :]
> 
> thank you for reading through this! i've always felt that galahad/percival was lacking in the smut department which is reasonable considering the context of their story, but at the same time... sometimes you just wanna write about your favorite couples sharing sexual intimacy together, y'know? so here we are.


End file.
